She looked at me.
"Your summer at Palace does not slip. Not by a day. You do not get to go off and play World Cup manager and come back to a club that stood still for six weeks. Whatever you were going to get done this window, you get it done, or signed off to be done, before you fly. They will not let you leave a job half finished and they are right not to."
"Which means today," I said.
"Which means today. Before you tell that federation anything."
"And it goes both ways, Jess." I had been turning two things over since the crest went face up, and they were not up for negotiation.
"Two things from my side, and you hold the line on them tonight the way they're holding theirs. One. My staff come with me. Bray, Steele, Marcus and his lads, Rebecca. I'm not walking into a World Cup three weeks out and standing in a dressing room full of strangers with nobody beside me who knows how I see a game. They'll have their own backroom, that's fine, mine run it. I don't do this on my own."
